Blue Star Planet to pay £620k for safety failures

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Gambling operator Blue Star Planet Limited will pay a £620,000 regulatory settlement following a UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) investigation that found serious failings in its player protection and anti-money laundering (AML) procedures.

The failings, which occurred between November 2019 and June 2021, were identified during a UKGC compliance assessment. The operator also agreed to pay £3,571.25 towards the Commission’s investigation costs. The £620,000 payment, made in lieu of a formal financial penalty, will be directed to socially responsible causes.

Investigation Findings

The UKGC review uncovered significant weaknesses in Blue Star Planet's policies and their implementation, primarily concerning social responsibility and AML.

Social Responsibility Breaches

The Commission found that the operator failed to adequately protect vulnerable customers. Specific failings included:

• Lack of Overnight Monitoring: The operator did not employ staff to monitor safer gambling alerts overnight. This meant customers who triggered alerts for potentially risky behaviour were not reviewed until the following day.
• Delayed Interactions: Due to the lack of real-time monitoring, some customers were able to hit several safer gambling triggers without any intervention, permitting them to spend significant amounts over short periods.
• Ineffective Alerts: Financial risk alerts failed to properly consider average discretionary income, meaning at-risk customers were not identified at the earliest opportunity.
• Failure to Act: The UKGC noted two specific cases where the operator did not act quickly enough to interact with customers who were exhibiting clear signs of problem gambling.

Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Failures

The investigation also revealed breaches of licence conditions related to the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing. Key issues were:

• High Deposit Limits: Financial controls designed to automatically limit deposits were set too high, allowing some customers to deposit large sums in a short time before any risk profiling occurred.
• Inadequate Risk Assessment: The company's AML risk assessment was found to be inadequate, failing to account for certain high-risk factors outlined by the Commission.
• Slow Interventions: Some customers were able to gamble at high velocity before automated restrictions were applied. The operator also accepted that Source of Funds (SoF) evidence should have been requested from some customers much earlier.

In a minor breach, the operator also had a broken link on its website to its UKGC licence status, which was corrected immediately upon discovery.

Regulatory Action

In its public statement on 16 February 2023, the UKGC noted several aggravating factors, including the serious nature of the breaches and that the operator's senior management should have been aware of the governance issues. However, the Commission also considered mitigating factors, such as Blue Star Planet's cooperation throughout the investigation and its early recognition of its failings.

This case underscores the UKGC's focus on ensuring operators have effective, round-the-clock systems to protect players and prevent their services from being used for financial crime. The Commission expects all operators to learn from the failings identified in this investigation and review their own procedures to ensure they are robust and effective.